New York’s Whitney Museum Appoints Meg Onli as Curator-at-Large, Promotes Laura Phipps to Associate Curator

New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art announced two new curatorial appointments, including its curator-at-large position, which hasn’t been filled at the museum in nearly 15 years.

Writer and curator Meg Onli will join the institution as its new curator-at-large. In this role, Onli will curate exhibitions, propose acquisitions, and serve as an ambassador and advisor on special projects.

Onli is currently co-curating the 2024 Whitney Biennial with Chrissie Iles, a curator at the museum. Additionally, Onli is co-curating the Whitney’s upcoming 2026 Roy Lichtenstein retrospective—the first in more than thirty years in New York—with artist Alex Da Corte and incoming director Scott Rothkopf.

“I have always admired the Whitney’s long-standing history of field-defining exhibitions and support for emergent artist practices. I am very excited to be part of the life of the Whitney, and to collaborate and explore with the incredible team here. I am also so appreciative of the flexibility of the role, which affords me the opportunity to focus on the creative and bring new ideas and perspectives to the Museum,” Onli said in a statement.

The last few years have been arguably turbulent for Onli, who left an associate curator position at the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia to join the Underground Museum in Los Angeles as director and curator shortly before its closure.

“It is humbling to represent my hometown of Los Angeles, and its leading art scene. I look forward to being an ambassador and building bridges between emerging and overlooked voices in the art world and the Whitney,” Onli continued.

Onli comes to the Whitney having curated such acclaimed exhibitions as “Colored People Time: Mundane Features, Quotidian Pasts, Banal Presents” (2019) and “Jessica Vaughn: Our Primary Focus Is To Be Successful” (2021), both at the ICA Philadelphia, and co-curated “Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation” (2022) at the Hammer Museum.

“Meg is that rare innovative thinker who glimpses the future while respecting the past,” Rothkopf explained in a statement. “I’ve already been dazzled by Meg’s thinking on the Biennial and know she has even more to contribute as the Whitney’s first Curator-at-Large in over a decade.”

The current assistant curator Laura Phipps was also promoted to associate curator. She most recently stewarded the landmark retrospective “Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map,” on view through August 13, at the Whitney Museum. Phipps, who has held various positions at the museum since 2009, is also co-chair of its Indigenous art, artists, and audiences working group, working to lead institutional engagement and collaboration with Indigenous communities.

“For more than a decade, Laura has made incredible contributions to Whitney as a curator and colleague, with whom I’ve had the great fortune of working directly on many challenging exhibition projects,” said Rothkopf in a statement.

“She brings deep insight, commitment, and care to her work with living artists, and her current exhibition of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is a landmark in the history of the Whitney and the broader field of contemporary art,” he continued. “In her new role, Laura will continue this important work building our collections, engaging artists, and strengthening our program.”